Vodafone's Music Service

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Finally an operator has decided to step into the music downloading business and challenge Apple's monopoly. Operators had completely ignored this particular market paving the way for iPods. Wonder what took them so long to figure it out. With the impending European launch of iPhone, this becomes more significant. Maybe the N95, with Vodafone's music store can be a competitor to the iPhone.

And IMHO it is a huge opportunity in India as well. Music phones are very popular in India and as is Bollywood music. Ringtones based on Bollywood music is already the biggest VAS segment in India. It would be the natural evolution to a music downloading service on the mobile phone. Plus the Indian Music Industry is much better than the likes of RIAA and MPAA. It is a vast untapped market. And to counter the low popularity of GPRS, you can always do sideloading.